Astros player's words, racist gesture spur condemnation, conversation

After crushing a second-inning home run off Dodgers starter Yu Darvish in Game 3 of the World Series, television cameras caught Yuli Gurriel making a slanted-eyes gesture in the Houston dugout.
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Eve Collins is the owner and founder of Chino Bandido, which serves Chinese-Mexican food. For years, she has been called "Chinita" by Hispanics. She doesn't view the term as derogatory or racist, but some say it's not appropriate for people to call others that.(Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic)

Eve Collins was sitting at a table in her Phoenix restaurant when Yuli Gurriel came up to bat during Game 6 of the World Series playing on television.

As Collins turned her head to watch, the crowd at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles erupted in a chorus of boos. They were expressing outrage at the Houston Astros' Cuban-born first baseman for a racist gesture he directed at the Dodgers' pitcher Yu Darvish during Friday's Game 3 in Texas.

Collins, however, didn't share that reaction.

"I just don’t think it’s worth making that big a deal out of it," said Collins, who was born in America to Chinese immigrant parents.

Cameras on Friday caught the Cuban-born baseball player in the dugout using his fingers to pull at the corners of his eyes, moments after hitting a home run off Darvish, who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and an Iranian father.

Gurriel also was seen mouthing the word "chinito."

Gurriel's gesture has been widely condemned as racist. But it also prompted conversation over whether the word "chinito" is equally offensive.

The Astros vs. Dodgers World Series game is shown on TV at Chino Bandido on Oct. 31, 2017. Eve Collins, the owner and founder of the Chinese-Mexican restaurant Chino Bandido, says she has been called "Chinita" by Hispanics for years. She doesn't view the term as derogatory or racist. The term made news when Cuban-born Yuli Gurriel of the Astros used it while making a gesture of slanting his eyes at Yu Darvish, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers who is of Japanese-Iranian ancestry. Gurriel, who has been suspended for five games next season, apologized but told Spanish media that in Cuba and other Latin-American countries, "Chinito" is a term used to describe all Asians, suggesting it was not an insult. Nick Oza/The Republic

Eve Collins, owner and founder of Chino Bandido, says she doesn't consider the term "Chinita" to be derogatory or racist. In Cuba and other Latin American countries, "Chinito" is a term used to describe all Asians, says a Houston Astros player who got suspended for next season for using the term with a gesture directed at an L.A. Dodgers player who is of Japanese-Iranian decent. An ASU professor says that is true, but regardless, it's time to stop using that word. Nick Oza/The Republic

Eve Collins is the owner and founder of Chino Bandido, which serves Chinese-Mexican food. For years, she has been called "Chinita" by Hispanics. She doesn't view the term as derogatory or racist, but some say it's not appropriate for people to call others that. Nick Oza/The Republic

The World Series is on TV at Chino Bandido restaurant on Oct. 31, 2017. Cuban-born baseball player Yuli Gurriel of the Houston Astros is under fire for making a racist gesture and using a controversial word for people who are Chinese. Nick Oza/The Republic

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'I know they don't like it'

Gurriel, who had apologized to Darvish last week, told Spanish media afterward that "in Cuba and in other places, we call all Asian people Chinese ... But I played in Japan and I know they find that offensive, so I apologize for that. I know they don’t like it.’’

Gurriel was suspended for five games for making the gesture, but won't miss the games until next year, allowing him to continue playing in the World Series, including Game 6, when the series returned to Los Angeles after the Astros took a 3-2 lead in Houston.

Collins, the restaurant owner, said Gurriel's gesture, combined with the word "chinito," was "clearly a taunt."

But the word "chinito" is not always offensive, she said. After all, the name of her restaurant is Chino Bandido or "Chinese bandit" in English.

The name is a catchy bilingual reference to the restaurant's bicultural menu, a combination of Chinese and Mexican food. Customers are greeted by a life-size statue of a giant panda sporting a Mexican sombrero, chopsticks and a long droopy mustache.

The name was coined, Collins said, by her late Anglo husband's friend, who playfully accused him of being a "Chino Bandido" because he had married a Chinese-American woman.

"I don’t view it as always being derogatory," Collins said. "It’s more of the context and the inflection and the tone that is used, that indicates to me whether it’s being used in a derogatory manner."

She pointed out that Chinese-speaking people have their own terms when referring to people from other races and cultures, and "many times they are not complimentary, shall we say."

"I have been referred to many times as Chinita," Collins said, including by some employees at the restaurant, most of whom are Latino.

Julian Jacob, 60, one of Collins' Latino workers, agreed. He said he often refers to people of Chinese descent as "Chinito" or "Chino."

"It's just another word for a Chinese person. I don't use it as an insult or derogatory," Jacob said during a break from his dishwashing job.

Latinos also use the word to refer to other Latinos who appear Asian, even if they are not, said Anahi Campos, a 24-year-old server at the restaurant.

As an example, she pointed to a picture of herself at a Diamondbacks game taped to the wall behind the restaurant counter. When her mother saw the picture, she told her, "When I smile, I looked Chinita."

The World Series is on TV at Chino Bandido restaurant on Oct. 31, 2017. Cuban-born baseball player Yuli Gurriel of the Houston Astros is under fire for making a racist gesture and using a controversial word for people who are Chinese.(Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic)

Insult or term of endearment?

In Latin culture, determining when the word Chino or Chinito is meant as an insult or a term of endearment can be tricky, said Jim Shee. It depends on who is saying it and how they are saying it, he said.

Shee should know. His father was born in China, and his mother's parents came from Spain. He grew up in South Tucson, which was about "80 percent Chicano," speaks Spanish and Cantonese, and is married to a Japanese-American woman, Marian Tadano.

He was outraged when he saw Gurriel making the racist gesture on TV.

"I was pissed off," said Shee, 78, who is president of the Arizona Asian Chamber of Commerce.

Afterward, he posted a picture from television on the chamber's Facebook page showing Gurriel making the gesture. He believes as punishment Gurriel should have been yanked from the World Series, instead of being allowed to serve his suspension next year.

Shee said using the word "Chinito" in combination with the gesture amounts to a racist slur. Growing up, those were fighting words, Shee said.

He recalled the fights he had when kids in his neighborhood used to taunt him with a racistchant in Spanish, that began, "Chino. Chino. Japonese ...," which in English means, "Chinese. Chinese. Japanese ..."

"I have a knife scar in my hand," Shee said, a reminder of one of those fights.

Even so, Shee said he is not offended when friends call him Chinito, and has sometimes used the word himself when addressing other Asian friends.

"It is a common term. I don’t think Chino or Chinito or Chinita are derogatory terms. In regular terms, you could use that," Shee said. "There is nothing wrong with that at all."

Not necessarily so, said Manuel Aviles-Santiago, an assistant professor of communications and culture at Arizona State University.

The word Chinito has long been used colloquially not only to refer to Asian people in Latin America but anyone who appears Asian.

"It’s like a casual way of calling someone with almond-shaped eyes. It does not mean they are Asian. A lot of people who have Native blood have almond-shaped eyes," he said.

While not meant to be offensive, referring to someone as Chinito has a patronizing tone, especially given the history of discrimination and exploitation against Chinese people living in Latin America, Aviles-Santiago said.

In Cuba, he pointed out, Chinese laborers were brought in during the mid-1800s to work in sugarcane fields in a form of servitude and were treated almost as slaves.

Because of that history, some people are starting to think twice about using the word to refer to someone who is Asian or has similar features, he said.

"People are thinking 'Is that the right way to refer to someone with almond-shaped eyes? Are we tokenizing these people? What is behind it?' " said Aviles-Santiago. "So people are becoming more aware, and I think probably future generations will avoid it because they are realizing that it's not the right way to refer to someone."